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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Sometimes a conspiracy theory exposes a conspiracy. Sometimes the conspiracy theory is the conspiracy.

JFK assassination plots are the only conspiracy theories to be widely accepted by the general public. The moon landing filmed in a studio, the Lincoln conspiracy or the World Trade Center being blown up by lasers from outer space never gained much credence because they lacked mainstream backing. Conspiracy theories ordinarily remain on the margins. The JFK theories were too important to the liberals who were really running things to allow them to die out.

There are probably more Americans who could tell you the ins and outs of the "magic bullet" than can recite the Bill of Rights from memory. More books have been sold about the Kennedy assassination than about any of the real government abuses taking place today.

The 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination brings with it the usual weighty tomes, speculative articles and nostalgic reminiscing by liberal baby boomers about the utopia that might have been.

John F. Kennedy long ago stopped being a politician and became the collective egotism of a certain type of liberal of a certain age. He had become an unreal figure long before he died, composed of wishes and progressive fantasies, photos with cool celebrities and generational gloating. His death made that unreality permanent, relegating the real man to a Camelot of collective liberal fantasies.

The JFK assassination became a liberal martyrdom in search of a conservative inquisitioner. Oliver Stone's JFK was a laborious effort to connect the martyrdom of a liberal icon to the despicable conservative villains that the narrative of this political theology demanded.

The gnostic elements of martyrdom usually involve the revelation of spirituality in the mortal flesh. But JFK, like Obama, had always been more than mortal, a creature of flashbulbs and film, a messiah of a new generation and a new age. It was his opponents who represented the prosaic materialism of money and steel, three-piece suits and conservatism, who had to be exposed and outed.

For the Kennedy martyrdom to have deep spiritual meaning, it had to have come at the hands of those who represented everything that opposed the values of the Cult of Camelot. And so a vital element of JFK worship, like O.J. Simpsonism had to be the search for the real killers. And like O. J. Simpsonism, the real killer had to be searched for because everyone knew who the real killer was.

Camelot was a messianic age of political transcendence that had been aborted forcing us to live through more cycles of materialistic history. The political messianism of JFK was as doomed as that of Obama or any other liberal savior. Unlike Obama, it conveniently ended in a martyrdom which excused a generation of liberal failures.

The revolution didn't fail. It was murdered. The endless search for the real killers was not done to find them, but to perpetuate the martyrdom myth. The search could never be complete, the conspiracy theories could provide no closure, though the lynching of Nixon, for daring to try and make JFK's liberal legacy work helped put to rest the ghosts of Camelot for many angry liberals.

Most conspiracy theories have two purposes; they make the world seem like an orderly place in which everything happens for a reason and they sell books. The former is another reflection of the death of religion. The search for secret knowledge, a battle between the powers of good and evil for the soul of the world, is secularized and politicized for a materialistic spirituality.

JFK was the martyr of the new America that was being born. That America would be a chaotic place where madmen would do what they pleased, where the planners would fail and anarchy would rub shoulders with tyranny, meaning would be lost and those who pursued it would lose their minds and laugh their insanity for the entertainment of the masses. And that was just the seventies.

Three years after the Kennedy assassination in Dallas, an engineering student and another former marine would climb a tower at the University of Austin and open fire. The killing spree would become a starting point in an accelerating trend of mass killings.

The murder of John Lennon, another liberal icon, in the first year of a new decade that closed the door on the chaos of the counterculture, would be a death undignified by any larger meaning. From Charles Manson to Jim Jones, these were the mad horrors spawned by a damaged culture where the monsters and madmen were suddenly the only ones who understood the rules.

Kennedy was killed in a more innocent time when it was still possible to deny that the wave of change was not ushering in a brave new world, but the destruction of a culture that had kept the worst human instincts in check.

The Cult of Camelot sought a deeper meaning in his death because the alternative would have been to recognize that the world was not an orderly place and could not be made so by planning. And it sought to disguise the truth about his murder.

JFK was not killed by some miasma of right-wing hatred, by a confederacy of Cuban exiles, CIA agents and Sicilian mafia bosses.

The directions in which the JFK conspiracy theories point reveal what they are trying to hide. John F. Kennedy was not murdered by a miasma of hatred on the right, but on the left. Before liberals became leftists, leftists had a propensity for killing liberals. And Lee Harvey Oswald was as far to the left as you could go.

There was never really any disagreement about Lee Harvey Oswald's politics. The media has avoided the issue by not talking about it while characterizing him as a screwball who wasn't happy anywhere. That much is true, but Lee Harvey Oswald was a militant Socialist screwball who defected to the Soviet Union and plotted the murders of people he considered "right-wing".

The piles of conspiracy theories shove him to the side as an excessively convenient killer. But Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a continuum of left-wing terror in America. The murder of JFK was a bridge between the explosions of violence in the twenties by anarchists and by the Weathermen in the seventies. Oswald was part of the leading edge of left-wing violence in America.

Like so many radicals, Oswald was bored and shiftless. The reality of the Soviet Union with no revolution, just factories to work at, did not appeal to him. Instead he drifted back to America, a weapon in search of a target. The actual murder may have shocked the nation, but it would not be very long before left-wing violence would once again become part of life in America.

All this is far more consistent and far more dangerous than any of the alternative explanations. Worse still, it's simple. And even worse, it's obvious. Which means that it can't possibly be true.

JFK was not killed by a military-industrial complex or a vast right-wing conspiracy. No group of men in suits sat around a table plotting his death. The forces that killed him were the same political ideas of the left that led young American men and women to cheer for the Viet Cong, plant bombs and wage war against their own country.

To understand why JFK died, you must understand the Weathermen and Leon Czolgosz who murdered President McKinley, you must understand the Atom Bomb Spies and Sacco and Vanzetti and a century of left-wing sabotage and terrorism in America.

It’s much safer to talk about magic bullets, than magical thinking ideologies that promise that a workers’ paradise is only a bomb away.

Conspiracy theories rely on finding the inconsistencies and unanswered questions that can be found in just about any event if enough threads are pulled on and enough experts with magnifying glasses crawl over the evidence. They suspect the simple, even as they replace it with byzantine and the complexity, replacing logical answers with to the unending search for the unanswered question. They stare at the static of the television screen, at the Heisenberg Effect of unanswerable questions, at the details that shift close up, and it becomes their obsession and their faith.

The conspiracy theorist has faith that life has meaning. It is a secular sort of faith and its faith object is not divine, but malignant. The meaning of life is malicious. It operates the way it does because evil people behind the scenes refuse to allow for any coincidences or random chance. No sparrow shall fall because a dozen secret agencies are always monitoring it from space.

It is a faith not in good, but in evil.

Kennedy politics had been meant to be optimistic, but the assassination accelerated the liberal reversion to the underlying pessimism and paranoia, the sense that life was doomed, that people had to be rigidly controlled to keep society from coming apart.

The assassination was a warning, not from some secret organization, but from the consequences of the ideas of the left. Instead of searching for Cubans in the CIA, liberals should have looked in the mirror instead. The chaos and violence they were afraid of was not coming from some secret organization, it was coming from inside the movements of the left.

It still is.

The real Kennedy conspiracy was an effort to suppress the basic truths of what had happened and to replace them with a recursive loop of conspiracy theories that could never resolve anything while convincing everyone that the basic truths of what happened could be safely ignored.

The conspiracy did not cover up the work of the secret organization that killed JFK, but the secret organizations of the left whose ideas led to his murder. The real JFK conspiracy concealed the deeper secret that the left is destructive and that its ideas carry a dark wind of chaos and violence.

The left cannot make history come out the way that it wants to, but it can always lie about it. Its myths of the past, dreams shattered by vast right-wing conspiracies, swallowed up by the greed of the 80s and 00s, are tawdry attempts at refusing to learn the lessons of history so that it will be given the freedom to repeat its terrible mistakes.

Lee Harvey Oswald was the stepchild of the left's destructive ideas on society. The same madness that led to Guyana and the bombing of the Pentagon had its day fifty years ago in Dallas.

33
comments:

Anonymous
said...

To mark the 50th anniversary of the death, here in the UK we were given a showing of an investigation by an Australian detective who came to the conclusion that although there was an attempt by Oswald to shoot the President, his death came about by accident when a gun being held by a Secret Service Agent went off while he was moving it round to aim back towards the Book Depositary. It was an interesting film & the conclusion well made.

"From Charles Manson to Jim Jones, these were the mad horrors spawned by a damaged culture where the monsters and madmen were suddenly the only ones who understood the rules."

True.

OT but I was watching Escape from Jonestown a couple of nights ago and apparently Jim Jones was deeply into Communism and would even force his cult members to say a word or two in Russian before he would allow them to eat. No Russian, no food.

Scary. He'd either have to be fluent in it, people would have to make up words that sounded Russian, or limit themselves to the more common ones like "da" and "dasvidaniya." Without help from my sister-in-law's family I'd be pretty limited to that, spasibo.

Great words to say to someone like him, huh? I suppose you could just say nyet but he'd see that as signs of progress that he was forcing people to think in another language.

I was shocked that he actually brought the cyanide with him from the beginning, he didn't ship it in towards the end of his terror. He meant to kill those people all along.

I normally agree with your essays, but this time, no.Kennedy was murdered because of several reasons.He was going do dump LBJ in 64.He was undermining the Fed by issuing currency redeemable in silver, rather than the fiat FRNs.He was going to back off on Vietnam, which would have cost the banksters and the defense industry billions.Some times it really IS as simple as "follow the money, follow the power" and the old Roman adage "Who benefits?" when seeking answers to seemingly complex/sinister questions.Today, my saying is, "A "conspiracy theorist" is someone who notices things without official permission -- and a "domestic terrorist" is anybody who challenges the government's monopoly on violence.

Regarding the JFK conspiracies--all of the reenactments on TV are so morbid. Jeez, they really have to have an expert sharp shooter try to see if his killer could have aimed at this direction or another.

I remember those days well. You watched TV in black and white, read the newspapers and listened to the radio. Afterwards, you tried to make sense of the thing. Well, as JFK's wife Jackie said, "It had to be a silly little Communist". The left thusly had to make up total nonsense so they could sleep at night.

Then Bobby Kennedy is shot and killed by a left wing Palestinian. Oh dear, our narrative is falling apart.

Had there been a Tea Party at the time, you would have never heard the end of the blame game.

Then yesterday you read in the Wall Street Journal that Castro and the Cubans knew something was going down in Dallas and had turned all their antennas towards Texas that day. I used to be a spy for NSA in the 1960's and know how that works as we did this ourselves except against the Warsaw Pact countries.

The left killed the Kennedys. Progressives, Socialists, Communists and other useless Democrats need to get over this.

I'm much in agreement but find your post incomplete. It is not just leftist myth making that supports the JFK conspiracy theories. The hard evidence both ballistic and otherwise (rate of fire, trajectory of bullets) does not support the contention that Oswald worked alone. Without either refuting that evidence or providing a convincing alternative explanation of the evidence that explains how Oswald could have acted alone, objective observers are left with no other choice but to conclude that Oswald could not have acted alone. Thus all the 'theories', which for the left, fortuitously perpetuate the left's memes.

The success of the opinion-shapers of this country to turn this fact 180 degrees into an outright falsehood is one of the most successfully sinister distortions of truth surrounding a single incident in this nation's history. Name anything that comes close. -- CJ

All these conspiracy theories act as if sniping was something new and revolutionary. It was a hundred years old by then. It was a significant part of the Civil War and a major part of World War II. The Dallas water tower shooter you mentioned was not a militarily trained sniper and held police at bay in addition to successfully making quite difficult shots. The fact the two incidents are never juxtaposed to show that Oswald could quite easily have shot Kennedy is pretty telling.

This is a completely ridiculous article. In his comments, Carl stated the motives of numerous parties. Anyone can piece together who killed JFK by reviewing government documents and performing some basic google searches..you can start with bush jfk.

Why would the Left kill Kennedy? If not killed and allowed to pursue his plans he would have pulled our troops out of Viet Nam, would have normalized relations with Cuba, would have come to some détente with Russia, would have broken away from the Federal Reserve and would have abolished the CIA. He also would have taken away tax benefits given to millionaire oilmen. Excuse me, but weren't these left wing positions in the sixties?

I know people who believe JFK was killed by "bankers". They think that Lincoln was killed because he wouldn't do something very favorable to bankers. And that nations today that don't have a "federal reserve system" have crappy economies not because they don't have a "federal reserve system", but because the "bankers" actively somehow screw with their economies to try to force them into such a system. It's all very illogical, disjointed, and bat-feces.

I am 70 years old and remember John Kennedy and his murder. John Kennedy was to the right of center even in the 60s. He was a fierce anti-communist and like his brother Robert was against corrupt unions (aren't they all) and lukewarm towards Martin Luther King. He did not support an expansive welfare state, and thought it was a state level activity. He most certainly would have expanded the Vietnamese war, leftist delusions to the contrary not withstanding.

He was killed by Oswald because he was a conservative, because he had tried to assassinate Castro and because he approved of the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

Starting with McKinley, every successful and attempted presidential assassinated was committed by some sort of socialist/communist--no exceptions. Also, virtually all political violence is committed by socialist/communists. Their ideology requires violence, incites it, glorifies it and excuses it, just as long as it serves leftist goals.

You should also expose Ted Kennedy. Besides being a debauched sybarite, he stabbed his martyred brothers in the back and pissed on their graves. He allied himself willingly with the socialist/communist wing of the Democrat party, exactly the same McGovernites who vilified John and Robert during their lifetimes.

Over the years, I've seen all the different "conspiracy" theories played out in the news, television and even the movies. They all crumble when more modern forensic analysis and investigative techniques are applied. They aren't even "great theater."

What surprises me is the one explanation of what happened that day that makes the most sense to me is rarely included in any of these discussions. That explanation is that Oswald did shoot Kennedy (and Connolly), but the fatal head shot was an accidental shot fired by a Secret Service agent in a car behind the Presidential limo when the driver accelerated so rapidly the agent fell backwards accidentally firing the AR-15 he was holding onto. That explains the violent "explosion" of Kennedy's head that we've all seen too many times. The rifle that Oswald used could not have done that but a round from an AR-15 could.

The subsequent "cover up" by the Secret Service by confiscating anything and everything from reporters and the FBI was just "circling the wagons" and, to my mind, was the only real conspiracy. They could not possibly have to admit that the death of Kennedy was almost assuredly an accident at the hands of one of their agents.

Any possible evidence of this was either not furnished (it was under impound by the Secret Service) or was ignored by the Warren Commission. Evidence that could have been developed was ignored.

Not heard of this? There have been books and TV shows about it and they are very well written and produced, without drama, and lay out the evidence. No theories. Just facts as they are known.

The killing did cause the curtain of gloom falling over the bright light which the Kennedy administration had caused to shine on the future of the American led march of western culture towards a positive future.

I say who cares? I am so sick of the Kennedy's, Clinton's, and Obama's. The Kennedy's were all a bunch of rich crooks, lusting for power as all Democrats do, and believed they were the ruling aristocrats who were destined to rule the world. Same with the Clinton's and Obama's. Sick, sick, sick of them!!!

I have read several excellent books, websites and watched some great documentaries on the Kennedy assassination. I am quite sure that Oswald killed Kennedy and that he acted alone. I do not understand the emotional need that many have for believing in a massive conspiracy. Every major conspiracy theory has been dissected and convincingly refuted at John McAdams's site "The JFK/Assassination Home Page." Google it.

Some of the commenters here have referred to the absurd theory put forth in a book called "Mortal Error" that claims the fatal headshot was fired by a Secret Service agent accidentally. The agent, one George W. Hickey, sued the author and the publisher for libel and settled out of court for a huge sum. This idiotic theory of the "accidental headshot" is nonsense, but there is no end to absurd assassination theories, and no limit to the gullible and credulous who will believe most anything, the Warren Report being the sole exception.

That Hickey could have fired an AR-15 into Kennedy's head with hundreds of spectators watching (and somehow not seeing) is specious enough. But analysis of the lead fragments in Kennedy's brain and wounds showed all of them came from Oswald's rifle. There were no lead fragments from an AR-15.

Lots of truth connecting the Left to violence, historically. Unfortunately, you are wrong about the poor sap who was blamed. The reason there were, and still are, conspiracy theories is because so much evidence was hidden or destroyed, witnesses ignored, and claims made that were incredible. The destruction of evidence began within hours of JFK's death. I won't argue about it, but those who wish to recall can start with: http://tiny.cc/n2zu6wRegards,

"The subsequent "cover up" by the Secret Service by confiscating anything and everything from reporters and the FBI was just "circling the wagons" and, to my mind, was the only real conspiracy. They could not possibly have to admit that the death of Kennedy was almost assuredly an accident at the hands of one of their agents. "

Makes sense, which also makes Jack Ruby and his ties to organized crime and law enforcement more interesting.

The Left always takes advantage of any slip, to lie and lie again. (As Lenin said, 'Tell any lie to gain power'). And, yes, overt violence for political gain, and the threat of such violence, ('Occupy Wall Street') is a well recognized tool of the Left.When I say 'slip', I mean the Warren Commission report which I admit I have not read. My impression is that they simply did not do a good enough job investigating Kennedy's assassination, which left the door open for endless speculation and myriad conspiracy theories.

Of all of the crap I've encountered over the years, in the end, the simplest solution - offered here - is the only one that makes sense. * * * Semi-unrelated, note the leanings of all of the violent characters of late. Nothing's changed that much. dr

There may actually have been a conspiracy to kill JFK. The mafia seems to be a viable suspect. Who can say? It's clear that the government's version is a panicky fairy tale. But the Left has created the moral desert that enables this sort of violence. It's no coincidence that domestic violence of all kinds accelerated starting in the 1960s.

The thing to remember about ALL of the workplace/school shootings, assassinations and "minority" crime is that they are entirely the Left’s fault. For decades the Left has been “celebrating” the "bravery, transcendent moral superiority and sensitive intelligence" of losers, cowards, criminals and deviants. The Left has gathered these misfits to her venomous tit and filled them full of self-righteous feelings of entitlement and superiority. It’s the old concept of the “beautiful loser” writ large.

So these losers are confirmed in their pathological impulse to blame all the evil “normals” for their misery. The Left also implies, directly or otherwise, that it is an act of transcendent courage to lash out at the Oppressors: That is to say, winners and achievers who have been conveniently redefined by the Left as bullies and brutal, uncaring Neanderthals. It's right out of the Marxist playbook.

As soon as a loser/deviant decides he has nothing more to lose, and is ready to extend his self-destructive behavior to the ultimate, logical conclusion, he feels like a hero when he mows down those around him, with whom he compares unfavorably by any rational, moral standard.

And, true to form, the real victims in these scenarios are blamed for their own deaths. The mainstream media decides that decent people should be changed to suit the deviants. THEY should be forced to behave like cowards and losers. THEY should be disarmed.

Anyone with any basic knowledge of guns and ballistics (and common sense) can see that the fatal shot came from the front. The motorcycle officer riding behind the limo was hit so hard by a piece of Kennedy's skull, he thought he'd been shot.I don't know if Oswald was ALSO involved or not, but I do know that when CBS did a reenactment with a professional marksman, it took him three tries to replicate the shot. Plus, when tested, Oswald's rifle scope was misaligned. And as far as the few moments of footage of him being questioned, he looked truly bewildered and confused, like an innocent person would be. There are too many bizarre, irreconcilable aspects to this story to believe this loser pulled off the hit of the century. It doesn't make ME a conspiracy theorist, it makes YOU a coincidence theorist.

Thank you for writing this essay, Mr. Greenfield. It has helped greatly to clarify my own thinking.

Not only do we have the aping in the White House as a boomer-projection legacy, but from what I was reading yesterday michelle's quota-crony's winning the lottery on a no-bid contract to create a non-functioning website is the new normal.

Affirmative Action is the New Segregation. 'Cause if the Federal Gov'ment does it, It's alright, ya'll!

Interesting new book by Buglosi claiming LBJ did it. My Dad was always convinced that Johnson had motive & opportunity. Like most people, I've been whip-sawed back and forth with so many theories over the years, I don't know what to believe. Oswald could have done it alone, but it would have taken great skill and unbelievable luck and that's why I've always leaned towards a Mob hit. Now we can focus on another arch-criminal villain - Johnson.

The fact there are so many unexplained anomalies and unanswered questions, still, means anyone with little imagination can concoct more conspiracies for fun and profits. It's a cottage industry. In my opinion, many on the Left know the ugly truth (about themselves) and propagate every new theory in order to maintain the confusion and chaos, deflecting attention from their murderous "ends justifies the means" ideology..

I cannot honestly believe that people still believe in the single bullet theory. It's really quite simple. The Warren commision moved the position of the back wound up to the neck in the drawings it presented as evidence. Gerald Ford even admitted it. There was no wound in the back of the neck. It was 6" below that, in the back, and with the wound in that position, single bullet does not work. So, instead of reaching the correct conclusion that the position of the wound in the back nullified single bullet, the commission chose to re-postion the wound. Every time I see a single bullet reenactment with the bullet entering Kennedy in the trapezius muscle, I shake my head. It's bullshit.

There is a conspiracy that is real and that is the left has conspired to destroy all that is left of morality, decency, honor, and truth.

All of their myriad and various individuals, groups, foundations, wealth and organizations have this common goal and never before in history have they all come together with an onslaught of corruption, lies, debauchery, and attack on liberty and the good of man.

All of the conspiracy can be debated ad nauseum. Given backing and interest, any event can be similarly deconstructed into nonsense. There's an entire infrastructure of conspiracy theorists and defense lawyers who will willingly advance theories, some plausible, to prove that a thing which happened could not have happened.

My friends who remain devoted proponents of conspiracy, citing the same old motives that have been circulating since before Oswald was arrested, need to do some remedial homework. Find an unedited copy of the remarks President Kennedy made to the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, that endless Friday morning; what turned out to be truly his final speech. In it Kennedy made his positions on Vietnam, to name only one bugaboo, crystal clear, and on defense and deterrence, in a town dependent on advanced armaments, explicit. And he spelled out his vision of America as the keystone in the arch of freedom, as the essential and exceptional nation. He sounded a lot like Ronald Reagan.

Jack Ruby did us no favor denying Oswald a day in court. Oswald was, unquestionably, a true-believing Marxist psychopath, and he was already looking forward to a trial where he would have had to have been disowned by the left, and the foreign actors he so desperately had hoped to impress.